On the recordJanuary 5, 2017
Our Founding Fathers intended for us to have a limited government. If they saw what we have today, they would be appalled. Our government has gotten huge. It is out of control, and an alphabet soup of government agencies and unelected bureaucrats are writing the laws. They call them regulations, but they have the effect of laws. I am going to disagree with my friend and colleague from Tennessee, any power these agencies have to write regulations was delegated to Congress. We are pulling some of that power back, back to Congress, back to people elected by the people; in fact, to where the Founding Fathers put it in Article I of the Constitution. That is why I am here today, to support the REINS Act. It says that if an agency enacts a regulation that has an economic impact of more than $100 million, that has to come back before Congress for a positive vote before it takes effect. Now, quite frankly, because the Constitution vests all of the legislative power in Congress, I think every single regulation that one of these agencies does should have to come back before Congress, but the REINS Act is a great start. Throughout President Obama's administration, a flood of regulations has put extreme pressure and burdens on American job creators and American families. Take, for example, the EPA's waters of the U.S. rule. It is a power grab by the EPA attempting to regulate any body of water on a private land basically that is any bigger than a bathtub.…
